Bob Katter (Kennedy, Katter's Australian Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Deputy Prime Minister, on 4 March didn't you say, 'We must be a nation of vision. One thing we can do is build Bradfield,' rightly claiming this banishes flood, fire and drought? Why then have you allowed self-appointed elitists to abolish Bradfield's Hells Gate, reducing it from six million megalitres to two million; from 120,000 hectares of western desert uplands irrigated into $4 billion of annual production, to a $300 million a year pygmy scheme not out west but adjacent to and polluting the Barrier Reef?

Andrew Wallace (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before I call the Deputy Prime Minister: I'm not going to allow the level of interjections that was in the last question. I will start ejecting people from the chamber.

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'd like to thank the member for Kennedy very much. I understand his passion. We both have a belief and vision to build water infrastructure. I understand what you're saying about six million megalitres as per your proposed dam, but with Burdekin Dam, which would be about 1.8, and Urannah Dam, at 2.1, we're getting close to 10 million megalitres of water. That starts to put real problems on whether we get the approval through the Queensland government.

I say to the member for Kennedy right now: even though Hells Gate Dam was an item of critical infrastructure for the Queensland Labor government, as well as an election promise, as was Urannah Dam, our office is still awaiting any form of correspondence back from them that they have any intention to build either, even though they don't have to put one cent on the table for it. The reason for that, as the member for Kennedy knows, is that the Labor Party is controlled by the Greens. If you want confirmation of that, the member for Kennedy need only wait until tomorrow night, where we'll see whether the Labor Party is going to build Hells Gate Dam, whether the Labor Party is going to build Urannah Dam, whether the Labor Party will put money on the table for Dungowan Dam or whether they will be the party that removes this vision.

Ultimately, they don't stand behind the people of Gladstone, they don't stand behind the people of Townsville and they don't stand behind regional towns. They have no vision. They have never built anything of any substance in any of their terms in government for the people who are in this room—maybe in the past, most certainly, the Chifleys and the Curtins, but the member for Kennedy knows that those people are long since gone from the Labor Party. What we have now and what you'll hear in the next night is an apologist to the Greens' sentiment that, obviously, the whole world is complete. All we've got to do is stop and get off; there is nowhere to go. The member for Kennedy is very aware that, if you're going to talk about how you spend money—and they're doing a fair bit of that—you've actually got to talk about how you're going to earn it. That is the fundamental difference that you have seen in the document that the Treasurer and the Prime Minister have put forward for our nation. They have made the brave decisions about how we earn the money. They have made the brave decisions on how we stand behind the people of Gladstone, how we stand behind these decisions. But we haven't heard anything from the Labor Party in support of that infrastructure. Yet the gentleman that sits opposite me, the member for Grayndler, used to be the infrastructure minister. Not one piece of our infrastructure, apparently, does he agree with, because he lacks any vision. So, if you want to build Hells Gate, this is the side that's going to build it. If you don't want anything for North Queensland, there's the alternative.